--- title: "Regulating Transformative Technologies · AI Fault Line" url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1257-aeri-20230353/ description: "AI Fault Line is a neutral, evidence-cited field guide to why experts looking at the same developments disagree about AI's effect on productivity, jobs, inequality, regulation and the pace of change." --- [Research](https://aifaultline.com/research/) # Regulating Transformative Technologies [Daron Acemoğlu](https://aifaultline.com/authors/daron-acemoglu/), Todd Lensman · American Economic Review Insights · 30 Aug 2024 [Read original source](https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20230353) Where this sits in the debate - [Should governments act on AI now?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/regulation/) · its finding: it depends ([why studies differ](https://aifaultline.com/debate/regulation/#why)) Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)). ## Abstract Transformative technologies like generative AI promise to accelerate productivity growth across many sectors, but they also present new risks from potential misuse. We develop a multisector technology adoption model to study the optimal regulation of transformative technologies when society can learn about these risks over time. Socially optimal adoption is gradual and typically convex. If social damages are large and proportional to the new technology’s productivity, a higher growth rate paradoxically leads to slower optimal adoption. Equilibrium adoption is inefficient when firms do not internalize all social damages, and sector-independent regulation is helpful but generally not sufficient to restore optimality. (JEL D21, H21, H25, O31, O33) ## About this publication **Leading field journal.** A leading journal in economics or a neighbouring field (on the Tinbergen Institute’s A list or near the top of the RePEc ranking), or a top-rated computer-science venue. Placed by: Leading field journal. [How sources are ranked](https://aifaultline.com/about/#source-ranking). Published 2024 (26 months ago) Citations 16 (OpenAlex) ## Citations in context [Chart: 16 citations, cohort median 47] 16 citations — 22nd percentile among the 23 indexed papers from 2024 in this collection. Citation counts favor older papers; this compares only same-year papers here, not the whole literature. [Chart: published 2024] □ added to this collection in 2026. Daron Acemoglu signed the wemustactnow.ai letter · author affiliation matches seed institution massachusetts institute of technology — part of why this paper is in the collection. ## More on this topic Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion. - [Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1287-orsc-2025-21838/) Organization Science · 2026 - [Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-2139-ssrn-4573321/) SSRN · 2023 - [Generative AI at Work](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-qje-qjae044/) The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025 - [The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilot](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-48550-arxiv-2302-06590/) arXiv · 2023 Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata. [How this site is built](https://aifaultline.com/about/).